1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to cleaning objects, of the type having a releasable cleaning/treating agent and, more particularly, to a tag for use in association with the cleaning object to display a message after the cleaning/treating agent is expended.
2. Background Art
It is known to form cleaning/treating agents into a discrete mass, such as a bar. Certain body maps, waxes, polishes and the like are manufactured so that the cleaning/treating agent defines the entire mass. As the cleaning/treating agent is released, the size of the mass diminishes.
One example of such a structure is a conventional bar of soap. With the bar diminished in size to a relatively thin shape, the bar becomes brittle. The small bar is difficult to use and parts thereof often break off and may cause clogging of drains, as in sinks and showers. The thin bar is also prone to dissolving into a soft, shapeless mass.
Another problem with the conventional cleaning object of the type described above is that once expended, no identifying material remains as might be valuable to a consumer. Typically, a bar of soap will have impressed thereon a company name or trademark for the product. However, in a relatively short time period, the impressed information is worn away so that the only identifiable material remaining is the color of the releasable cleaning/treating agent. Since the outer wrapper is normally discarded before the first use, the consumer may be unable to identify a product that he/she considers worthy of re-purchase. The result of this may be a loss of return business to a supplier.
Various inserts and attachments have been devised throughout the years for use with cleaning objects, such as soap bars. In U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,707,334, to Unfried, and 3,773,672, to Bredice, inserts are shown embedded in a soap bar, primarily to maintain the integrity of the bar through its useful life.
In U.S. Pat. Nos. 680,052, to Lynch, and 246,989, to Wilkerson, external attachments are shown for a soap bar primarily to serve as a support for the soap bar to prevent disintegration thereof as when the soap sits in a pool of water.
None of the above patents addresses the problem of identifying the product or providing other useful information in association with the product after the exhaustion of part or all of the useable soap mass.